betting on college football

The 1985 Oregon State vs. Washington football game was a college football game between the Oregon State Beavers and the Washington Huskies that took place on October 19, 1985. The game featured the largest overcome point spread in college football history up to that time when the Huskies, after being favored by 38 points, lost the game 21-20 after the Beavers blocked a punt and recovered the ball in the end zone with 1:29 left to play in the fourth quarter. It is considered one of the greatest upsets in college football history.[1][2][3] On October 6, 2007, Stanford achieved the highest point spread upset in college football history when the 40 point underdog Cardinal defeated the No. 2 ranked USC Trojans, 24-23Prior to the game, the Beavers were coming off four straight losses including back to back blankings against USC and Washington State, where they allowed a total of 97 points. No team in Oregon State history had allowed that many points over back-to-back games. Prior to that, the Beavers lost to Division I-AA team Grambling State by a score of 23-6 and to Fresno State 33-24.[5] To make matters worse for Oregon State, starting quarterback Erik Wilhelm was out for the season, and Pac-10 Conference (Pac-10) leading receiver Reggie Bynum was also out due to injury.[1] Additionally, the Beavers had lost the last 10 games played against Washington.[6]
The Huskies, on the other hand, were coming off a four-game win streak and were leading the Pac-10.[1] After the betting odds came in to Las Vegas set at -38 for Washington, the Seattle media had a field day insulting the Beavers. One reporter went so far as to say that "Oregon State plays football pretty much the way Barney Fife played a deputy sheriff on Mayberry".[1] In a television interview, Huskies head coach Don James said he expected to give his reserve quarterback Chris Chandler a chance for some playing time.
Oregon State head coach Dave Kragthorpe used the media comments in his pregame speech to the Beavers in an effort to motivate them to prove critics wrong before they went out on the fieldWashington put the first points up on the board after a field goal put the Huskies up 3-0 in the first quarter. Oregon State backup quarterback Rich Gonzales, who had only taken 9 snaps prior to the game, responded by stunning the Huskies with a 43-yard touchdown pass to Darvin Malone on the following drive, giving the Beavers the lead. Washington responded with a 80-yard drive and a touchdown of their own, regaining the lead 10-7.[1]
On the next drive, Washington forced Oregon State into a 4th and 20 position on their own 28 yard line. A Husky rush forced the punter to attempt to run for the first down instead of punting the ball, being stopped 10 yards short, turning the ball over on downs to the Huskies on the Beavers' 38 yard line. Washington drove to the 8 yard line, but then threw an interception in the end zone to give possession back to the Beavers. Oregon State then capped off an 80-yard drive with a 20-yard scramble for a touchdown by Gonzales, regaining the lead for the Beavers 14-10 going into halftime.[1]
Washington again regained the lead in the third quarter, going up 17-14. With 1:32 left in the quarter, Washington had first and goal at the one yard line, twice trying to run the ball up the middle and failing to get the score, bringing up third down. On the following play, OSU linebacker Osia Lewis knocked out Washington running back Vance Weathersby with his tackle, causing a fumble that Oregon State recovered.[1]
With 7:59 remaining in the fourth quarter, Washington increased their lead to 6 points by making another field goal, putting the score at 14-20.
At 1:29 remaining in the game, Washington was forced to punt from right outside their own end zone. Oregon State's Andre Todd rushed the punter and managed to block the punt, sending the ball flying into Washington's end zone, nearly causing a safety. However, the bounce went Oregon State's way and ended up staying in the end zone, allowing the Beavers to recover it resulting in the touchdown. The extra point was good, giving the Beavers a 21-20 lead, which would prove to be enough for the win, resulting in the biggest overcome point spread in college football historyOregon State players celebrated, shouting "You can blame this one on your media" as they returned to the locker room.[1] The Seattle media ended up not showing up to ask questions for coach Kragthorpe after the game.[1]
Washington finished the Pac-10 season at 5-3. Eventual conference champion UCLA, whom Washington had previously defeated, went to the 1986 Rose Bowl with a conference record of 6-2. Washington would have won the tie-breaker and represented the Pac-10 in the Rose Bowl. Oregon State did not win any more games for the rest of the season and finished in 9th place in the Pac-10Aside from simple wagers--betting a friend that one's favorite baseball team will win its division, for instance, or buying a football "square" for the Super Bowl--sports betting is commonly done through a bookmaker. Legal sports bookmakers exist throughout the world (perhaps most notably in Las Vegas). In areas where sports betting is illegal, bettors usually make their sports wagers with illicit bookmakers (known colloquially as "bookies") and on the Internet, where thousands of online bookmakers accept wagers on sporting events around the world. (In the United States, the legality of Internet wagering is ambiguous, due to the fact that online bookmakers generally operate outside of the U.S. Some online bookmakers do not accept wagers from the U.S. due to these unresolved legal questions.) The bookmaker earns a commission or "vigorish" by regarding the money at risk as less than the size of the bet placed. A common line is a $110 bet on a fair coin which pays $210 to win and $0 to lose. On this line, it costs $220 to bet both sides of the same coin simultaneously, but the combined bet always pays $210. The $10 loss constitutes the vig. There are opposing positions on whether the winner or loser can be construed as paying the vig, but this debate is not especially meaningful. If you view $110 to win $210 on a fair coin as $100 at risk, then it will appear as if the loser pays the vig; if you view the same line as $110 at risk, then it will appear as if the winner pays the vig. It happens that standard practice among bookies is to adjust odds so the amount at risk remains constant from the winning side of the proposition, hence the common perception that the loser pays the vig. Vigs expressed as percentages suffer from the same perceptual bias. On the line as given in this example, for a fair coin, the bookie has an expectation of making $5 for each $110 bet placed, which is often divided out and expressed as 4.5% Odds on teams or adversaries are quoted in terms of the favorite (the team that is expected to win, thus requiring a riskier wager) and the underdog.
Bookmakers generally offer two types of wagers on the winner of a sporting event: a straight-up or money line bet, or a point spread wager. Moneylines and straight-up prices are used to set odds on sports such as association football, baseball and hockey (the scoring nature of which renders point spreads impractical) as well as individual vs. individual matches, like boxing. For these sports, bookmakers in Europe and Asia generally use straight-up odds, which are quoted based on a payout for a single bet unit; for example, a 2-1 favorite would be listed at a price of 1.50, whereas an underdog returning twice the amount wagered would be listed at a price of 3.00.
American bookmakers generally use moneylines, which are quoted in terms of the amount required to win $100 on a favorite, or the amount paid for a $100 bet on an underdog. The amount "won" in a bet is the net amount over and above the initial bet. If a person wins $200 on a bet of $100, the bookmaker actually pays the winner $300 (i.e. $200 plus the initial bet of $100).
For example, a baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs might have a moneyline on Milwaukee (the favorite) at -200 and Chicago (the underdog) at +180. A bettor looking to take Milwaukee must risk $200 for every $100 he wishes to win over and above the initial $200 bet. A person wagering on Chicago will win $180 for every $100 he bets.
The +180 moneyline on Chicago includes a 20 cent "dime line". Bookmakers generally use a "dime line" with moneylines to calculate the vigorish they receive on losing wagers. Without the 20 cent dimeline in the example above, the Chicago moneyline would be +200.
For favorites of -120 to -150, the difference between the favorite and underdog is 10 cents; i.e., the underdog to a -120 favorite is priced at +110. The discrepancy between prices rises for favorites of -160 or higher.
Unlike point spread bets, a moneyline wager requires only that the team wagered upon win the match. In sports such as baseball, where certain teams can be heavy favorites against weaker opponents (sometimes as much as -350 or higher), the moneyline system requires that a hefty sum be risked on the favorite, while enticing underdog players with a higher payout.
In sports such as basketball or American football, betting on the point spread is more popular, although money line odds are usually offered as well. A point spread wager typically requires a bettor to risk $110 to win $100, the extra $10 being the bookmaker's vigorish if the wager loses. However, bettors backing the favorite collect only if their team wins by more than a specific victory margin, which is set at the time of the wager. This is called "covering the spread". Similarly, underdog bettors can collect even when their team loses, as long as they win against the point spread by losing by fewer points than were quoted by the bookmaker. For example, suppose that a college football game between Kansas State and Kansas had Kansas as a 27 point favorite (quoted as Kansas -27, or Kansas State +27):
If Kansas defeats Kansas State by more than 27 points, they have covered the spread and bettors on Kansas would receive $100 on a $110 bet. Kansas State bettors lose the $110 they wagered. If Kansas State defeats Kansas, bettors on Kansas would receive $100 on a $110 bet. Kansas bettors lose the $110 they wagered. If Kansas State loses by less than 27 points, they have won against the spread. Bettors on both sides are then treated exactly as if Kansas State had won the game. If Kansas wins by exactly 27 points, the wager is called a "push", and neither side wins. Standard practice by U.S. bookmakers is to return the stakes of all bettors on the game in full. To prevent pushes and ensure that they receive their commission on losing wagers, bookmakers often set point spreads that include a half-point. Another common wager available for sporting events involves predicting the combined total score between the competing teams in a game. Such wagers are known as "totals" or "over/unders." For example, the Kansas State/Kansas football game described above might have a total of 55 points. A bettor could wager that both teams will combine for over 55 points, and play the "over." Or, he could predict that the score will fall under this amount, and play the "under." As with point spreads, bookmakers frequently set the totals at a number involving a half-point (i.e., 55.5), to reduce the occurrence of pushes.